1/32 scale animals

She's a very handsome, pleasant-looking elephant, and I especially like the pink depigmentation speckles for the face and ears.

This model looks absolutely great to me. Obviously there's some room for little improvements but everything with the word slightly. A slightly longer body, a slightly smaller head and a slightly narrower tail. Elephants are trumpeters but they are also accordionists. When their legs get close to each other during their walk, their bodies look really short. When comparing with the Britains models, this figure seems to have a more correct dropping back and generally it looks a more mature animal. I am not sure I'd love to see new dentition to turn it into a bull. I think we were informed by the brand it was a female.
Now I am curious to see what's better than that. Probably the new Mojö Fun African elephant for [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and a vintage bull for [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

You are right about number 2, Rogério. In the runner-up position we indeed have the Mojö African elephant bull that was released last year. It is a stunning model with an interesting pose, attractively modelled head and an elegant, lean body.
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Perhaps he is my favourite elephant and I feel sorry about putting him in second place, but he has some very minor imperfections. The trunk seems a bit too short to reach the ground and the shoulder-to-head transition looks slightly awkward. And while I don’t like bulky elephants, this one may be a little bit narrow, which may be OK for a younger elephant, but because he is quite tall in 1:32 scale, it doesn’t work perfectly in this scale. None of this diminishes my enjoyment of this beautiful model, but it made it difficult to rank him first.
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The model has a shoulder height of 10.6/339 cm, which, together with the Bullyland, makes him the tallest of my elephants. However, his shoulder height exaggerates his real size, because his hip height is only 9.5/304 cm and he is much less bulky than the Bullyland. Here you can see this in a comparison with the Bullyland (left) and Britains elephant cow (right):
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In this photo, we can see that he has quite a narrow body:
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Let’s do a few more comparisons. With the Britains elephant bull:
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Together with the Britains elephant cow:
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With the Mojö elephant cow, a great pair:
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And with another Mojö, the Asian elephant:
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With the Safari charging African elephant:
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And with the Bullyland African elephant:
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Oh yes he is a great looking elephant! Shame that Mojo didn't get the ears right on the female but they look great on the male. Obviously different sculptors?

I guessed it! So your favorite elephants are the same as mine. At least for this scale.
I also think there's something weird about the head/body connection and the body should be bulkier but not the legs, of course. I am not sure the trunk is short. The head is quite high, if you put it on body level with the trunk down, it will look different.
Yes, the Asian and African elephants are from different sculptors.

It's lovely to see these elephants and read your interesting observations on their good and bad points!

Today is number 1! It was a very difficult choice, but I’ve chosen the Eikoh African elephant as my favourite.
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Perhaps a controversial choice to select an elephant that isn’t by one of the major “Western” companies, but everything in this elephant looks right to me. He has a well-built body with appropriately sized legs. Head not too large and a good-looking face. I like the tusks that aren’t too big, unlike in most other African elephant models. Excellent pose too: not too wild, but the sidewards look makes it interesting. I am very fond of the colour too. It’s kind of a khaki/beige in several shades. Less sombre than the dark brown elephants and more exciting than the grey elephants. I also like the smooth skin: You can see wrinkles but it looks like this elephant has taken care of his appearance!
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I think I want my animal models to be like Greek sculptures of the human body. The Greek sculptures aren’t fully realistic because most humans aren’t perfectly beautiful, rather they are idealised, beautified models of the human body. Similarly, elephants aren’t perfectly beautiful, they often look a bit ungainly, awkward and weathered. I feel like the Eikoh is an idealised model of an African elephant: Elegant, beautifully coloured and a smooth skin.
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The Eikoh elephant is a male and has a shoulder height of 9.0/288 cm, which is good for an average-sized younger bull. I think it could pass for a very large cow too if you didn’t look underneath. It was released in 2019 and is only available in Japan (in amusement arcades and also Amazon Japan). It’s made of a heavy PVC that is harder, less flexible than that of the other elephants in this ranking.
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Let’s do a few comparisons to see whether this elephant is really better than the other elephants. What is your favourite?

With the Safari playing elephant:
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The 2nd generation Schleich elephant bull:
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The Mojö African elephant cow:
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The Mojö elephant bull. Is the Eikoh better?
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Definitely better than the Nayab!
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With my favourite Asian elephant, the Mojö:
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With the Papo charging elephant:
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The Bullyland:
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Probably no surprise I like the Eikoh, it’s very similar to the Britains elephant cow:
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A great collection! For me my favourite is the Mojo African bull, then the Eikoh bull.

I think the Eikoh elephant is my favourite too, it's beautiful! And I found it really interesting reading your reasoning behind your choice and would definitely agree, the Eikoh style works really well for an elephant!

I enjoyed a lot to follow your top 10 and the biggest surprise was reserved to the end!
The Eikoh model was not in my cogitations because I forgot its existence or I was just not aware of it.
It is a balanced and appealing figure. It has many positives points. Correct profile, good proportions, nice tusks, etc. The facial elements are attractive and finely sculpted but it is probably the less realistic part of the model. However, it is surely among the best African elephant figures and maybe it is a good candidat to represent the extant species among the 1:35 scale Eofauna extinct proboscidians.
My vote also goes to the Mojö African elephant, it is iposing at this scale, I love its taller conformation and maybe its more conventional finish suits better my likings.

I love the Eikoh elephant, quite sad that it's hard to find.

Thank you all for your comments on my countdown. It was very difficult to choose my favourite, but fortunately I don't really have to choose because I can have them all .

We also have a team prize. Team Mojö is the clear winner with numbers 7, 3 and 2 in the ranking. The winning team:
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It's been really interesting seeing them in reverse order, this presentation was a great idea - not just 'here's a lot of elephants' but ranked in order of quality/realism, with thoughtful critique and comparison as it goes along. I actually feel like I've learnt plenty, about models I was totally unfamiliar with before (I've never collected elephant figures, so I'd never even looked at them), and will remember which are which much better than if you'd just done a single post with ten pictures in it.

rogerpgvg wrote:

Thank you all for your comments on my countdown. It was very difficult to choose my favourite, but fortunately I don't really have to choose because I can have them all .

We also have a team prize. Team Mojö is the clear winner with numbers 7, 3 and 2 in the ranking. The winning team:
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Definitely the Bull and the Asian elephant I may add these to the herd). I just can't un-see those ears on that female African Elephant.

I checked Mojö calves on TAW but they're defintely not as nice as the adult ones. It is great to see Mojö Fun figures being appreciated, especially when key species are being debated.
The new CollectA African elephant is out, probably a good candidat to join your herd.

I've got the current Mojö African elephant calf. It's fine, but you are right, not as good as the adults.

Is the CollectA already for sale?

Yes, Minizoo already has the CollectA model as you can see here.
If this price is AU Dollars, it is really unexpensive!

How inventive is the way Mojö has built their elephant family?
2nd and 3rd generations of the adult African elephant more a 1st and 2nd generation calves. They do not have that design consistency we see on Schleich families. Maybe they will release a new calf to replace the cute first version.

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rogerpgvg wrote:

The Mojö African elephant cow:
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these are my 2 favourites along with the Britains elephant cow. They would make a nice herd.

The Eikoh is a very nicely made figure overall. Thank you for the wonderful indepth comparison! It was fun and very informative!

UK stockists haven't got the CollectA 2022's yet (I'm stalking them frequently, waiting for the horses, but the elephants are on the same estimated arrival date of 'end of June' but not actually here yet )

Thanks, I didn't know Minizoo already has the CollectA, but I'll have to wait until I can buy it somewhere closer.

The Mojö giraffes also lack consistency, with the male being a different subspecies from the female and the calf.

The Eikoh and Mojö female are the closest to the Britains female in terms of sculpting. The Mojö is very dark so it works less well with the Britains than the Eikoh does.

rogerpgvg wrote:

The Mojö giraffes also lack consistency, with the male being a different subspecies from the female and the calf.

Exactly. Usually, when a new figure is introduced, the old models get an updated paintjob to match the new family member. It would be predictable with the giraffes but it didn't happen.
I don't know if it works commercially but personally, I find it interesting.

I hope you aren’t fed up with elephants yet, because I have only shown you fewer than half of my elephants. A couple that recently came in were too late for the ranking and I have to show you my elephant calves too. Let’s look at the calves first. No ranking because I am a bit confused what they should look like. Any elephant smaller than an adult and larger than about 2.5/80 cm could be an elephant calf, but the question is whether they have the right size for their age. My feeling is that especially modern elephant calves often look too young for their size. It isn’t something I can objectively determine by measuring them.

Let’s start with the Asian elephant calves. My elephant calves are more diverse than my adults because they come from different periods and I have more brands.
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One vintage Asian calf, a plastic copy of the Britains lead Asian elephant calf that was made between 1931 and 1960. I don’t know when and by whom the copy was made, but it was probably later and perhaps made in Hong Kong (it isn’t marked). It is made of a very light plastic and 3.6/115 cm at the shoulder.
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Two Japanese Asian elephant calves, one by Bandai and one by Takara TOMY A.R.T.S. The Bandai was released in 2002.
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Cute, but it looks like it is just a very small adult elephant. It’s 2.8/90 cm at the shoulder.

The Takara TOMY (3.7/188 cm shoulder height) has a funny pose:
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Ah, OK.
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I like it; I could imagine that Britains would have made a similar figure if they had ever made a plastic Asian elephant calf.

Finally, two modern Asian elephant calves, one by Schleich (2011) and one by CollectA (also 2011).
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The Schleich looks good to me, but I have the impression that it looks rather young for its size (4.2/ 134 cm).
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The CollectA’s size seems better. In terms of shoulder height (4.1/131 cm), it’s about the same size, but its head is less large and its legs less thick, which makes it look smaller. This is the only CollectA elephant in my collection.
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I like the Schleich and the CollectA elephants! The Britains copy is wonderful! If you ever come across another one please let me know. (or if anyone else has one they wish to part with let me know)

It is incredible how distracted I am about babies. I hhave the CollectA Asian elephant adult but I was not sure a baby existed. Actually, it has better proprotions than its relative. Schleich babies always look very cute like recently born individuals.

Not sure if this has been shown yet or not, but my daily Museum post today, the CollectA largetooth sawfish, scales 1:9.5-1:35

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